Legal Question in Criminal Law in California

When defendent got arrested he was charged with 1st degree murder/special circumstance charge due to beating,burning him while he was alive and shooting him, I call it torture when someone burns someone when they are alive. DA and Arson DA said at first it was torture and thats why the special circumstances comes in but now they say he was not tortured and he was exacuted, to my understanding i thought a person had to be alive when tortured but the DA'S say it's the shot to the head that killed him,and i still say he was tortured before they killed him with a gun.Also if death certificate says death by revolver and unknown type of caliber wouldn't that be two guns since the AND was listed. I might not be a DA but the word AND to me means more than one.


Asked on 11/22/14, 7:43 pm

1 Answer from Attorneys
Joe Dane Law Office of Joe Dane

What word would you expect? "Of"? It may be a simple grammatical issue - I woukd expect there would be further ballistics information - or if there is only a single gunshot wound, that says only one gun.

I understand that you still think the torture was pre-death, but the medical evidence may say otherwise (no indication of inhalation of smoke = no breathing and therefore no pre-death burning and torture).

There is more to any case than just one piece of evidence.

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Answered on 11/23/14, 8:51 am


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